Beacon Content Patrol
by LightningLink
Summary: Yang decides that she should go off and roast a user on the CCT. The rest of Team RWBY… doesn't think this is a good idea. Despite that, Yang pulls them into her scheme of calling out a fellow roaster without morals. After all, they are the Beacon Content Patrol. Berating a person wouldn't be that bad… right?


**Hey, everybody! Happy April Fools! In celebration of this, I decided to write this story! Enjoy!**

 _ **Edit Note (July 19, 2017): As of one month ago the author who was the inspiration for this story has deleted all of his stories and started fresh, and as such it is now impossible to go back and reference the actual stories. I respect the author for making such a decision. However, I will leave this here as a guide for what not to do as a fan fiction writer.**_

* * *

"Yang, are you sure this is a good idea?"

The blonde girl looked at the group behind her. Team RWBY squatted behind the tree with her, tugging and scratching at their police uniforms. Weiss and Blake wore huge frowns on their faces. It was clear that they would rather be anywhere else right now. Even Ruby, her dear little sister, had raised her eyebrows in confusion as she lowered the camera. Their eyes flickered to a figure sitting in the middle of the plaza. The heiress stepped towards Yang, brushing her ponytail to the side. "I mean, I get that you want to make fun of this guy, but what does Pyrrha have to do with all of this?"

"Now that I think of it, I thought we were filming something cool to start the video," the young girl added, giving her older sister a pout. "I thought we were going to have the four of us walking together in an awesome slow-motion shot! Why are we filming you jumping P-money?"

"Guys, it's all fine." Yang gave her teammates a wide grin as she threw a thumb at the champion. "We have to show that the video is first and foremost a satire on internet scum. That way, if anybody cries about it and claims that we're cyber-bullying the dude, we can say that the video's just a social commentary and point at the intro to prove it. Plus, I got Pyrrha's permission to do this. I'm not going to hurt her too much."

"Yang, I don't think you should be worrying about Pyrrha's well-being." The faunus girl shot glares at the blonde. "She can beat you to the ground while you're wearing Ember Celica after all. Plus, I'm having doubts on the idea of "roasting" this person, no matter how much he deserves it."

"Aw, come on Blakey! There's nothing a little ribbing would do to a guy like him! He's a roaster himself!" Yang wiped her nose with a smirk. "Besides, if you're willing to roast a person on the internet and can't take it back, you're just a hypocrite! I've been doing a lot of research on this guy, and trust me, he deserves it." The brawler checked the time on her scroll. "I think it's time to get this show on the road," she cackled as she rubbed her hands together. "You guys ready for this?"

Everybody shook their heads in panic. Yang let out a sigh. "Alright, let's review this again. Weiss, Blake." She pointed at the named girls. "You two are to grab me and pull me out of there if and when I throw my safe-word out. You guys remember what it is, right?"

Blake shook her head. "Yeah, but I have to ask: what kind of safe-word is 'potato?'"

"The best one, what else? Now Ruby, listen to me really carefully." Yang snatched her younger sister's shoulders. "You're the camerawoman, you have one of the most important positions out there. All you have to do is point the camera at Pyrrha and me. No matter what happens, do not pause the video, do not stop the video, do not cry out. I want to get this in one shot. Plus, I prefer not to get my ass handed to me over and over again. Am I clear?" Ruby nodded frantically.

With that sign of confirmation, Yang stood up to her full height and pulled out her familiar aviator shades. The world became darker once she placed them on. "Alright. We're ready." Her scroll slipped into her hand as she thumbed at a couple of the buttons. With a final press, a track loaded onto the screen, ready to be played. "At my mark, I want you to start the recording, alright?"

"Wait." Weiss raised her eyebrows up. "Aren't you going to warn Pyrrha that we're about to record?"

"Don't worry, improv's part of the magic. Ruby, go!" Yang heard the indicator on the camera chirp. The blonde waited a couple of seconds, allowing Pyrrha to sit around on the grass in peace, completely unaware of what was going to happen. Then she pressed the play button on her scroll and tossed it over to Blake.

 _What we do here is go back, back, back, back, back, back, back, back…_

At the sound of the bass, Yang charged directly at the redhead. Pyrrha only had a second to turn her face and open her mouth in horror before the blonde slammed her into the ground. Grass flew into the air as their limbs tangled into each other. The mass of the orange-red and blue rolled around the plaza, making grunting sounds all the while. Pyrrha managed to pull herself out of Yang's grip, stepping back and bringing herself into a wide stance with fluid grace.

The brawler's movements in comparison were more choppy and awkward as she threw herself into the champion, knocking the both of them back down to the ground. The rest of Team RWBY cringed as they watched the top two girls in the school fight like drunk amateurs for the next couple of minutes. Weiss and Blake rubbed their eyes and exhaling while Ruby made sure that the camera caught Yang reaching out towards them as Pyrrha held her in a headlock. All the blonde could do was struggle within the champion's grip before Pyrrha slammed her knee into Yang's chest.

The brawler wheezed, dropping to the floor as the air in her lungs were knocked out. Pyrrha stood up, gasping at the downed Yang. The brawler still stirred. The Mistralian champion walked out of frame for a moment, leaving Yang on the grass. The silence forced the blonde to look up with a bit of hesitation, only to jerk back as her friend brought back a series of floating trash-cans. Ruby's sister held her hands up as she pulled herself into a kneeling position. "Waitnononono—"

The protests were ignored as the first volley of trash-cans smashed into Yang, creating several dents within the metallic container as well as bringing out a fierce scream of agony. "AH! FUCK!" The objects bounced off of the girl, leaving her wobbly. "THAT WAS MY HEAD, YOU CUNT! OH GODS, THAT HURT SO MUCH! WHY WOULD YOU— OH SHIT!" Three more cylinders smashed into Yang, knocking her down to the ground. One managed to land open end first onto her head.

"I'm sorry!"

"OWW… NO MORE!" The blonde threw her arms out from under the trash-can in surrender. "PYRRHA, STOP! POTATO! POTATO!"

"I guess we're up, then," Blake sighed. "I wonder why Yang asked us to pull her out. I mean, doesn't she have a Semblance that absorbs the blows?" The rest of Team RWBY shrugged. "Why do we have to worry about her safety?" They heard a metallic clang as Yang threw the can off of herself. She didn't look too good.

Her answer was quickly answered as Yang felt her hair. She drew it back to her face, seeing sticky soda pop soaking into her precious mane. Her eyes glowed red at the sight. "Pyrrha…" she growled. The Mistralian bit her lip in concern.

"Oh shit, we gotta pull her out of there!" the faunus girl gasped.

"PYRRHA! I'M GONNA FUCK YOU UP!" Yang's hair flew up as she flew into a fury, setting the ground ablaze. Team RWBY threw their arms up to shield their faces from the sheer heat their friend was emitting. The champion paled at the sight, turning tail and making a run for it. "COME BACK HERE!"

Before the enraged blonde could do anything, Blake and Weiss sprinted into the scene and threw themselves onto her, pinning Yang to the ground. The girl grunted as she flailed her arms at the champion. "GUYS LET ME AT HER! SHE MESSED WITH MY HAIR!"

"Yang, you got to calm down." Blake pressed her weight against her partner's back. "Remember, it's just a joke. You said it yourself, it's just a gag to intro your—"

"I DON'T CARE!" The brawler started digging her hands into the ground, pulling both Weiss and Blake along with her. "PYRRHA'S NOT GOING TO BE SITTING ONCE I'M DONE WITH HER!"

"Oh boy," Ruby muttered as she continued filming the entire scene, marveling at the panicked look of the two monochrome girls as they took a ride on the angry bull Yang. "This isn't good. It's going to be a long time until Yang calms down." Cries for help escaped Weiss and Blake's mouth before being cut short as they were thrown off of Yang. They crawled away in fear the moment Yang started after them. Despite the chaos ruling the plaza, Ruby kept doing her job, slowly walking forwards to get a better shot of the rest of her team howling in pain.

* * *

Team RWBY's team dorm popped open, revealing the four girls in various states of exhaustion. Weiss had a haunted look on her face that won't leave even as she sat down on her chair. Her face scrunched for a moment before she placed a hand on her face, letting out a long groan, followed by a sob. Blake said nothing, pulling herself up into her bed and crawling into a fetal position. Ruby came in shortly after. Despite having little involvement in the acting, she wore a one-thousand-yard stare. She moved robotically, stopping to sit on Yang's bed.

Coming in the rear was the last member of Team RWBY. Guilt flashed through her lilac eyes as she combed through her sticky hair. Yang coughed into her hand, gaining the attention of everybody else. "Um, guys? I'm sorry about how I reacted back there. I have to admit, it's not one of my prouder moments. Pyrrha didn't mean it, I understand that. So sorry about flipping out on you guys." Everybody stared at her blankly. Yang rose her hands weakly. "Anybody want to film the roast now?"

"... I'm sitting out of this one," Weiss declared, starting for the restroom. "This is way too much for me. I'm going to change out of these and just study in the library. There's no way all of this effort is worth mocking one person." Before anyone could respond, she went through the door and slammed it shut.

"What about you, Blake?" Yang looked at her partner. "Ready for a round of recording?"

"Pleasedon'tputmeinfrontofacameraanymore," the girl whispered. She pulled her sheets over herself, wrapping them around her like a burrito.

The blonde let out a sigh as she turned towards the last member of her team. "Well, I guess it's just you and me, Ruby. Let me grab the tripod so we can both be in the shot together. Blake, don't make too much noise while we're recording, okay?" A hiss escaped from the faunus' sheets. "I'll take that as a yes."

After a bit of scrambling, Ruby and Yang finally put themselves in the frame. The younger sister sat on one of the desks while Yang leaned back against the furniture. If it wasn't for the dirty hair, it would've made for a nice picture. With the click of a button, the camera light turned red, chirping before starting to record the sisters.

"Hello, RemTube!" the blonde smiled. "I'm Yang, this girl here is Ruby, and we're the—"

"Rose sisters—"

"Xiao-Long sisters!" They both paused. Yang glanced at the seated girl. "Wait, this is awkward. What are we going to call the two of us? I mean, we can't exactly use different last names."

"... Huh." Ruby rested her hand on her chin. "I didn't think of that. Wow, this is pretty hard… Wait!" She turned over to the blonde. "How about the RWBY sisters? That way, if we bring in Blake or Weiss to record more stuff, this isn't nearly as awkward!"

"That. Is. Genius!" Yang high-fived the girl. "Thinking of the future already! I like it!"

"Thanks, Yang. By the way, should we reset the camera or something?" Ruby pointed at the still recording machine.

"Nah. I'll just go into some editing program and cut out the parts that actually matter. Okay, let's start again." She placed her aviators on for the camera, only to take them off with a flourish. "Hello, RemTube! I'm Yang—"

The sitting girl waved. "I'm Ruby!"

"And we're the RWBY sisters!" they cheered together. "Now, for our first episode of Beacon's Content Patrol, we want to bring to light a particular fanfiction writer who deserves to be roasted until well-done, and that is the infamous roaster himself, Shake N. Bake Mormon!"

"WHAT?!" The two girls turned around to see a furious Weiss Schnee back in her normal clothes. "Are you kidding me? So you're saying that you asked Pyrrha to beat you up, got enraged when she did exactly what you asked for, and put Blake and I in jeopardy just to roast some random fanfiction writer on the CCT?"

"What? Didn't you used to do that all the time?" Yang shrugged her shoulders. "I don't see how that's any different."

The heiress stuck out a finger. "One, I reacted to fanfiction. I didn't go out of my way to hate on the work. I reacted to some good stuff as well! There's a difference! Second, I stopped doing it. You know why? It's dumb. Getting angry at amateur writing is the most immature thing I've ever done! I'm not proud of it at all. Third, what you're doing is stupid! Whoever this Shake person is, he's just one guy! Why make fun of this one random user?"

"Because he's a terrible person, what else?" Yang shifted her weight. "Look, there are terrible people on the CCT all the time. Somebody has to call them out the rotten apples and say to Remnant that 'hey, this person's a piece of shit.' We, as users of the CCT, have the responsibility to self-moderate ourselves. Only then can we get a cleaner CCT for Remnant. Even if it's only by a little."

"I can't even—" Weiss rubbed the base of her nose. "You know what? Do what you want. Thank you for showing me that my decision was right. I'm going to do something productive with my life besides belittling some fanfiction writer." With that she left the room, leaving Ruby and Yang to their own devices.

"Okay… moving on!" The two turned back to the camera, with Yang leaning towards the camera. "So we're going to be taking a look at Shake N. Bake Mormon today. For anybody out of the know, he's a fanfiction writer whose most famous work is The RWBY Fanfiction Author Barbecue, where he 'roasts' fellow authors and sucks fellow readers off for those sweet, sweet reviews and views. But before we go into the flavorless charcoal that is the Barbecue, let's step back and talk about his earlier works, such as…"

"The RWBY OC 10 Commandments!" Yang threw her hands into the air and paused for a couple of seconds. Ruby pulled at her collar, coughing at the sudden silence.

"Um, Yang? Why are you doing that?"

"Well, I'm going to add a transition card here where there will be text with the title. It helps the viewers see when I'm switching topics."

Ruby brought her eyebrows up in doubt. "Don't a lot of people on RemTube hate that?"

"Yeah, normally it messes with the flow of the video, but our format works with it! We're bullet-pointing everything that's wrong with all of his stories, so it makes sense to have a transition card whenever we change topics."

"Huh. Okay. I guess that's fine. Let's continue on." Ruby turned to face the lens. "Alright, so the author first starts out this 'story' by stating how he, and I quote: 'writes stories that are VERY OC heavy, so I have a decent idea of what a good OC should be.'"

Yang leaned towards the camera. "One. I can see one OC fic. He in no way has any idea of what he's talking about. It's like saying you're a master at killing Grimm after you fired a shotgun at a crippled Beowulf. Yeah, you killed one, but how does that show any of your skills? If he had multiple OC fics out there, then sure, I would believe it. But do you really expect everyone to believe that you can kill Grimm left and right when they see a single dead corpse?"

"That smells of Boarbatusk shit. Shakey thinks of himself as the next messiah for OC creation. Like dude." She flicked her arms up. "That could be further from the truth. You're not the prophet Monty Oum, you know. You're just a dude who writes fanfiction, just like any other writer on the CCT."

"And that's not mentioning the actual guidelines that the author chose to put in." The younger sister adjusted her seat. "I have a problem with calling these rules 'commandments.' Most people when they think commandments they think rules that cannot be broken no matter what. After all, commandments are basically holy and therefore untouchable. However, most of these statements have a ton of flaws with them."

Ruby pulled out her scroll, flicking through the CCT. "For example, let's start with point number five: 'Don't just copy another character's Semblance.' Yes, while it's true that every Semblance is unique, it's possible to have Semblances that work differently but end up with the same result."

"Think of it like this: I can run at supersonic speeds, but that's because I can transform my body into roses to make me lighter and faster. Someone else can have enough leg muscles to run at the same speed as me. Maybe a person can adjust the air around them so that they can run without worrying about wind resistance. There are so many ways of attaining super-speed; it's not fair to think otherwise. Can you argue that sharing methodology is what you're referring to? Yeah, but also mention that. Otherwise, it can be taken the wrong way."

"Well, let's run down the list and mention some flaws," Yang continued. She held out her finger. "OC shall not be Batman. It's possible to write a character with a dead parent, it just happens to be that the majority of people suck at it. No Blake clones? Archetypes in writing exist for a reason. Good writers can pull it off, but again, people just suck at making archetypes interesting. The silver eye and the Semblance points I agree with. OCs not taking part of canon events? It's possible for OCs to do so if they are written carefully, which you can't expect from a medium filled with amateurs."

The brawler cracked her neck, rolling her shoulders before continuing on. "Don't be self-aware? That's not the same as breaking the fourth wall. Characters that can break the fourth wall talk to the audience and mock the story. It's possible to realize a situation is absurd without the knowledge that an audience is watching. I mean, doesn't any person have a moment when they think to themselves: 'there's no way what's happening makes any sense whatsoever?' Like, I don't know, flooding Vale with a ton of Atlesian soldiers, even when that might make everyone else nervous? … I think I made my point clear."

She coughed into her hand before continuing. "The point about OCs not having a direct relationship with a canon character is silly. Show writers can't think of everything that happens in the world. The whole point of fanfiction is to fill in those perceived holes and craft new stories out of that. It's possible to do it right. Most people just tend to not have that kind of foresight." Yang looked over to her sister. "How many do I have left?"

"Two more," Ruby responded.

"Alright. Here's the thing about overpowered Semblances. There's nothing wrong with writing overpowered Semblances. It can be balanced with character flaws or just sheer stupidity so that OCs don't actually reach their full potential. While it's preferred that Semblances are balanced, not every superpower has to be balanced on its own. Look at One Punch Man for example. The main character can literally punch a giant skyscraper monster into thousands of giblets! But his strength is balanced by the fact that he's also tired of being strong. He's bored with the fact that he can half-ass a punch and still win a fight. That's what drives his story."

"Plus, there's you Yang." The team leader adjusted one of her sleeves. "Your Semblance would be considered broken by many. After all, you can get hit and still get stronger over time. How would anyone beat that? Then you told us about the ice cream girl that took you down despite all of your efforts. How did she do it? By exploiting your anger and forcing you to overextend, allowing her to nip at your Aura until you ran out of steam."

"Ugh, don't remind me of that day." Yang rubbed the corners of her eyes. "Finally, the dark and edgy point. Are you aware that characters can grow? It's possible to write a person who thinks that kind of thing is cool but grows up to realize that he or she looked like a tool then."

"Jotaro Kujo from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a decent example of that. When he's first introduced, he's an unlikeable character. He's edgy as fuck and is just a dick. However, he also grows out of it both in his storyline and the one right after that. He matured, he grew up, he dropped the edgy attitude, and finally became a compelling character to follow. It's possible to do characterization with 'edgy' characters well, it's just that people tend to suck at paying attention to that kind of detail. Way too much in fact."

She adjusted a lock of hair that fell on her face. "You know what? The majority of these so-called 'transgressions' can be done well in the hands of good writers, but they stick out like a sore thumb because people suck at writing. That's the wonderful thing about writing: any literary rule can be broken to create an interesting concept."

"These aren't hard line rules that should be followed no matter what, which is what the word 'commandments' imply. They are common mistakes made by amateur and lazy writers. What Shakey asks for is way too much for a medium that has a pretty low bar in terms of quality. Yeah, it sucks to see these kinds mistakes, but a person careful with their writing can break those rules and still have something interesting. Shakey here threatens to stifle creativity by insisting his way is the right way, no other alternatives."

"Which brings us to the examples." Ruby cleared her throat. "In this list of guidelines, Shakey uses four fics to highlight his points: Violets and Roses, The Misadventures of Team DARN, Team MEDR, and Team OMGA. Now I'm surprised at this low number. You would think an expert at writing OCs would use a wider variety of OC fics, but I guess not. This author seems so confident in how wide his rules apply to all OC fics that he thinks four is enough. And one of them is one of his own story!"

"General rule of thumb." Yang glared at the camera. "If your best example for an argument is pointing at something you made, you fucked up. There's no way he's the only person who actually got it right. Plus, I question why he decided that this was the perfect place to advertise his own story. He's already done 'any OCs that doesn't break the rule' as an example, which is a lazy answer by the way. Why not now? It could totally work, lazy as it is. But no, this time Shakey had to get that plug-in, even when a ton of people couldn't care less. Dude, there are a ton of websites dedicated to RWBY OCs. Just look one up and take examples from there."

She started popping her knuckles. "To summarize, this is not even close to strict doctrine. People are bad writers, and having a guideline is great for those who don't want to fall into pitfalls. But the flawed nature of these 'commandments,' the lack of variety of examples, and his insistence on following a certain path can stifle creativity. It's possible to work with these concepts as long as it's done carefully. Shakey treats them like the plague, an unhealthy attitude when it comes to writing creatively. But enough of that. Let me show you guys one of his more recent works…"

"The RWBY OC Arena!" She threw her hands out again. Ruby looked around, fidgeting around in her seat before waving her arms.

"Do do do do?" the younger girl mock whistled.

"Eh, close enough." Yang shrugged. "First thing I noticed about this fic is the cover page." A grin appeared on her face. "I see Shakey Boy likes his Minecraft. What disappoints me about this one is that we don't get any of that nice, nice MS Paint style covers." She started rubbing her face. "I mean, the best part of a Shakey story is the fugly photoshopping. It gets me so, so—"

Ruby tugged at her collar again. "Yang? This is a joke, right?"

"Yeah, I'm being sarcastic." She dropped the smile. "The covers are bad in general. Like dude, learn some basic art and/or design. Now instead of bad kindergarten drawings, we get lame Minecraft backgrounds with anime characters on the front. Ooh, even better, Shakey probably didn't even make it. No, on this site called Planet Minecraft, this is an arena made by a user called dontfreak. Not even your own work, Shakey."

Yang shook her head. "I didn't think you were a thief. Oh wait, you're not a thief. You're a parasite who takes the efforts of other people and 'roasts' them for those sweet views. Now you're taking the efforts of some guy's five-year-old project! Can't find anything on the actual character designs, but considering what he does, I wouldn't throw out the idea that he might've stolen those as well. Remember everyone: credit the artists or don't use them. Says so in the image manager for story writers."

Ruby scooted into the center of the frame. "I'll take over from here, considering I'm the weapons nerd and big fan of fighting shows around here. Is that cool, Yang?"

"Yeah, sure. Go ahead." Yang stepped a bit to the side so that she remained in the frame but far enough to stay out of her sister's way.

"Thank you. The first thing I noticed about the first battle was how hard it was to read the character descriptions. It's hard to read Hiro's description because each line is stacked upon each other. Couldn't the author try to at least format the description so that it's clear what's going on? Another thing that bothers me is that the character descriptions are formatted differently." She glanced dead set into the camera. "Why? Dude, it's your job to make sure that everybody can read the descriptions. Who in the world is going to read this fic if you don't even care enough to standardize the character descriptions?"

Yang sighed. "Oh, I don't know, the people who submitted their OCs to battle and want to see their character kick ass."

Ruby pointed at her sister. "Right. That. Now onto the fight. The first fight is straight up unfair. You know why? One of the characters has the ability to manipulate time!" She jumped off of the desk and landed on a chair. "Rule number one when fighting: anyone who can control the pace of battle can control their opponent. Whether it's offensive or defensive, if you call the shots in the fight, you are going to win. There is almost no scenario in which a person not in control of the flow of battle can win." The girl brushed off her uniform before pulling herself back up onto the desk.

"You want to know why time Semblances are OP? It's because they will always have control of the pace of battle! Being able to manipulate time for even a second can change everything. The average human reaction time to a visual stimulus is a quarter of a second. That leaves the user with three-quarters of a second to slow down time, giving them the opportunity to escape! There's no way Jason had even a chance at winning because his opponent can use his wibbly-wobbly time powers to escape any fatal hits! All Jason could do is power up his muscles! This isn't a fight, it's a curb-stomp waiting to happen! Matchup characters better!"

"Ruby, let me step in." Yang retook her original place in the shot. "The next chapter is a list of rules. Newsflash Shakey, you can change the order of chapters in a fic! Move the rules to be the second chapter so that all of the battles are connected with each other! It's simple: go to the chapter editing screen, click the pencil icon, click 'move to' and select the chapter number you want to place the chapter on! The fact that you did this is lazy and unprofessional. Not good traits for a person who has a Pay-tree-on and is asking fans for money to continue doing this."

"We can talk about that later, Yang," the younger sister replied. "I still have one more fight to talk about: Ashlin vs. Isaac. You know what's stupid about this fight? This is a stupid pairing just like last time. Isaac's a close range fighter with a close range Semblance. Ashlin's a sniper-assassin who can fight in close and long range. No matter how you put it, this is an unfair fight. Anybody who can fight from far away against someone who has to get close always has the advantage. Ashlin as both a sniper and an assassin can plink the enemy when they're far and disable them if they ever get close. If anything, I'm surprised that Ashlin didn't just straight up curb-stomped this boy as well."

Ruby groaned as she slapped her forehead. "And don't get me started on the quality of these fights! These aren't imaginative fights, these are announcer reports that should go with an image or something!" She started throwing her hands around. "There's no energy, no description, no sounds, no reactions to improve our mental image of the fight! It's dull! Am I supposed to be reading a transcript of a fight in a play? Because that's not what I'm expecting from the fanfiction dedicated to fighting and combat!"

She slammed her hands against the back of the chair, getting a cry out of her as she tumbled to the ground. The room went silent as Ruby steamed in her anger, her chest shaking as she pulled herself back up. She shook herself out, taking deep breaths to calm herself. "Sorry. Lost control for a moment."

"... Okay… Wow, that was… something." Yang glanced at the camera before going back to her sister. "Uh, do you want to take five or something? I think I can handle the rest of the filming on my own."

"... Yeah, I'll do that." Ruby stepped out of the recording and flopped on Yang's bed. "Wow, this is surprisingly exhausting. How do RemTubers do this all the time?"

"I'm not too sure, Ruby. Being angry and funny at the same time is hard." The blonde girl looked back at the camera. "Well, Ruby's taking a little break, so let's go on to the next story on Shakey's profile…"

"Team MEDR!" She held her hands out for a moment. "Fuck, this is getting old… But anyways! Apparently, this is supposed to be Shakey's proudest achievement. This is his magnum opus, his masterpiece, the story he wants to be most recognized by. He's so proud, in fact, that he will take the time to plug it in any and all of his works! Seriously, he plugs this fic more than most teenagers will plug in their scrolls!" Her face turned lecherous. "Or something else, if you know what I mean. So, are we in for an electrifying experience of our lives?"

Her face turned to a frown as she stared into the camera. "No. This shit's terrible. Let me start with the first chapter, where we get cool Grandma telling her grandchildren about the good ol' days!" She swung her arm. "This granny used to kick some major ass, you know, and she doesn't hesitate to brag about how awesome Team Murder— I mean, Meteor is. She's dropping the hottest spoilers for us readers out there, from how her teammates got married to a pretty good description on each of her teammates. You know, the descriptions her granddaughters should already know by now. Why mention it again? But that's not the point." Yang scratched the back of her ear.

"Can you see the problem here? Yeah, Granny tells the entire audience a general summary of the entire story before we can even see it! Close the browser now, step away from the terminal. You're done here! There's nothing more to see. You know how it ends. Now if that's not going to satisfy you, you get to go to the actual chapter, where the characters do this really exciting activity! … It's going to class." The blonde rubbed her eyes. "Really? Shakey couldn't have given the readers a cool action scene, some kind of reason why to keep reading and whatnot? Oh wait, his battles are basically boring narrations anyways."

The brawler pressed a finger into her palm. "In writing, there's this very important concept called a hook. The hook gives the reason why people should give a shit when reading. In a mystery, that would be the mystery that people want to solve. In the action genre, it would be an awesome fight scene that will make people go, 'Holy shit! I want more of that!' Shakey Boy here crippled himself by starting out boring and keeping up the boring pace. Seriously. Nothing happens for a long, long time. It's just MEDR just being kids. There are no stakes aside from the melodrama that is the sexual tension within the team."

She smashed a fist against the table. "Granny fucking lied! She promised something awesome, but then we get stupid team politics and people just fucking around! I don't know what stories you read, but I pretty sure that stories should be interesting to read! Nobody would tell a story about sitting around in class unless something interesting happens, you know why? Because people read stories to show off interesting characters and an interesting plot! If there's no plot, you better have the best characters out there to hold this story up. But before that, let's get to our next topic." Yang combed through her hair. "Man, my hair's getting messed up." She looked back at the camera.

"The setting doesn't feel different from Vale. It reads like Vale, the students acts Valean, it's people from Vale in 'Atlas.' Man, you would think that Atlas would have a completely different culture than Vale. But reading through this I can't tell the difference between the two. What's the point of setting the story in Atlas if Shakey's not going to make Atlas a culturally different place with different values? You know, the interesting part of being from different kingdoms?"

"In this same vein, apparently in this future, the city of Vale falls due to a terrorist attack. This is also a false flag which placed blame against Atlas. Besides the scary implications of this, I'm surprised that after such a horrifying event, the people of Atlas wouldn't just talk about it. After all, it's a fucking terrorist attack! I can't imagine any people who would see a city fall and be like, 'let's never talk about this ever again.' A whole kingdom just went down! There's no way the rest of the three kingdoms would brush that under the carpet! Even if all of the kingdoms hated Vale's ass, they would at least celebrate the fact that it fell. Somebody has to talk about it, yet no one is." The girl dipped her head down, glancing at the ground for a moment before looking back up.

"The story itself has no sense of direction. The story uses a spice-of-life format for roughly twenty-five chapters, where the characters go to school and be regular kids. Fifteen of those chapters were from the first half of the story. It then sorta picks up on chapter seventeen when the White Fang starts attacking Atlas. Then the team gets kidnapped, they escape, they have a party. Suddenly, some new OC appears as the main bad guy, then MEDR finds his brother, they capture him, then said bad guy becomes their ally? What the hell's going on? Is this supposed to be the future or something? This would've been paced way better if Shakey just set the beginning to when the White Fang starts attacking Atlas."

Yang bit her lip. "And you know the problem with this format? It feels like there are no stakes the whole entire time. A story is run by conflict; every battle is a conflict reaching a narrative boiling point. They serve to change the characters for better or worse. So what does Shakey do? He makes Team MEDR win almost every academy battle. They didn't really get into a ton of serious fights until halfway into the story. We don't even get to see the first established bad guy until around the same point. It's clear MEDR will get their way since Grandma spoiled that for us. Team MEDR lives. Why should the readers care about the story if that's the case?"

"While it is true that Shakey argued that his volume one chapters are rough and that he updated the chapters, he's chosen to make a new chapter instead of updating his work." The brawler sighed. "Look, anything that's on the CCT will be judged. If you don't want that to represent the quality of your story, just fix it! Don't tell people you have a better version waiting in store, that's misleading!"

"Plus, it makes his story look a lot longer than it actually is. The V1 segment is roughly twenty-two thousand words. So if you take that into account, he has actually written a seventy-seven thousand word story. Still impressive, but the fact remains that the number on the description is lying to unaware users. Plus, the 'updated' chapter is a formatting mess, so people can only realistically read the original chapters. Again, that's lazy editing." The blonde let out a sigh.

"Now let me tell you about the OCs. You know, the OCs that are so good he was willing to plug one into the divine rulings of the 10 OC Commandments. We have Eli Newman, a gamer who's pretty trigger happy. There's Darien White, who's a politically obsessed, mentally retarded young man, the eldest of six children. That's not me being insulting, I'm just repeating what Granny told me. For some reason, he has a pet Ursa whose name is Biscuit and is intelligent. No comment. Now there's Rebecca Wisteria, a shy yet excitable girl who could somehow accidently seduce men who have low levels of Aura. Still not making this up. Then there's Malina Aulnoy, the Mary Sue of the story and Grandma in the prologue."

"Oh by the way, did you know that all of these guys happen to be Valean?" Yang slammed her palm against the table. "Yeah, Shakey says that all four of them were originally from Vale, but Beacon fell and all that, yadda yadda. Because that justifies writing Atlas-like it's another Vale." The girl stared at the camera. "Shakey, look at yourself. You brag about writing your characters in an Atlesian setting when your fucking characters are Valean? And you don't mention any of the tensions that are bound to arise from Valeans going to school from the people who allegedly shot up their kingdom? Fuck you for not even giving this subject matter the respect it deserves."

The girl stopped for a moment, pulling out a bottle of water. "Gonna take a drink." She threw her head back, taking a long gulp out of the bottle. A sigh escaped her mouth. "Ah, that hits the spot. Really soothes the throat. Where was I with the characters? Oh yeah. They're boring. Rebecca feels like a contradiction and has no compelling force pushing her, Malina's a bitch, Darien's the insulting butt of all of the jokes, and Eli is just uncompelling to read. Do they feel like real people? Sorta. I have to admit that. But they stay uninteresting. The author makes a half-assed effort to improve these characters, but they don't feel like they improve over time." Yang pulled herself onto the desk.

"Oh, also he breaks his own rules. Remember the rule set that he posted in the middle of the OC Arena story? One of the rules is 'don't have a pet Grimm.' Guess what Eli has? I don't give a shit that the rules are someone else's work. The fact that you approved of this rule means that you must comply with it as well. Plus, I see that he's using pre-Great War names for his characters. Characters that are set after the Great War. Can't use pre-War names; that's also a rule he approved of."

Yang let out a chuckle. "Oh man, dude. I spy with my little eye a hypocrite. You're not exempt from the rules, you know Shakey. Follow the damn rules you set up for yourself. Or are you too lazy for that?" Lilac eyes turned to the camera.

"Stupid sidenote here, but what the fuck is with the grave accent? You know, the one that slants left to right instead of the more traditional comma. If Shakey's not a native English speaker, I would understand that. I don't like it, but it makes sense. But saying that it's a habit is such a stupid excuse. On a QWERTY keyboard, the traditional comma is one key to the right of the right-hand pinky. All you have to do is move said pinky and hit it while holding the shift key. The grave accent is way over to the left corner of the keyboard, right below the escape key. I have not seen a QWERTY keyboard where the grave accent is closer to any of your fingers."

Yang let out a scoff. "So tell me, how exactly is using the grave accent easier than just hitting the apostrophe? You have to move your pinky two entire rows to hit the grave accent compared to the apostrophe. Yeah, that's the one that's easier to hit, not the one right next to your pinky. It's a bad habit if I ever saw one. Get. It. Changed."

"Hell, if you're so half-assed that you don't want to change your habits, there's an easy fix for you. It's called the find-and-replace tool. On Docs, it's Ctrl H. Hit the grave accent into the box for find, hit the apostrophe into the box for replace. Hit enter and now everything's fixed. Fuck, you can even have it actively be changed while you're writing! Tools to preferences in Docs, turn on automatic substituting, then fill in the boxes! You have no excuse to not fix this even if you're so lazy you can't change a habit!"

Yang rested her head against the wall, making a clanging sound. "I'm going to need a break. Damn, this is tiring stuff." She slapped herself. "No! I'm so close to finishing! I just have a couple more to get through! Come on Xiao-Long, channel your inner anger! This is what your Semblance is! Get pumped!" She shook herself out.

"Sorry about that. I think that's enough out of Team MEDR. Let's move on to the main attraction, the one you've all been waiting for…"

"The RWBY Fanfiction Author Barbecue!" Yang threw her hands out yet again, giving the camera a blank stare.

"How can I put this bluntly? This is cancer. Absolute cancer. There are so many things wrong with this, I don't know where to begin. How about we start with the fact that this thing shouldn't exist in the first place, eh? From the very first chapter, this violates a shit-ton of Terms of Services. One: Don't the story interactive with other users. Not only does he do so, he actively asks readers to send him other users to roast! Two: Make sure what you post is actually a story. He admits in the first chapter that this is a non-story. He's been warned by Critics United of these charges. Shakey Boy ignores them. This shit should be down the toilet a long time ago, but unfortunately, this turd's so big, it clogged the toilet and now the bowl's overflowing."

"And how about the fact that there's a way users can do roasts of their own?" Yang leaned towards the camera. "It's called the review system. Drop them into a person's fic, and it appears on the feed. Just like that. People do it all the time. Can't figure out how hard it is to leave one of those and just go on your way." She held a finger up, interrupting the thought. "No, wait, I think I have an idea. All Shakey wants is that big view count. Seriously, have you checked his summaries? There's always space for a view counter. Now if you truly gave a shit about writing, would any reader care how high that number is? No. It's just a way to inflate his ego and make himself feel important."

There was a short pause as Yang considered her next words. "Now, I don't mind a bit of roasting myself. It's nice to see other people get called out for their mistakes. In fact, there are entire shows on the television where comedians take a famous person and just rip into them. But you know the important part of the equation Shakey has missing? That's right. We're missing the humor. Roasts are supposed to be funny. Yes, they're supposed to mock a person. Yes, they're supposed to be crass. But at the end of the day, the audience should be laughing. It's all supposed to be a joke. I'm not laughing when I read this."

She combed her hair back. "By the way, let's get into the content itself. Shakey loves making fun of the victim's— I mean user's profile. And when I say mock, I mean nitpicking, because it turns out roasting people who want to be roasted is hard when they turn out to be decent people and also not famous for much besides their stories. Really, you're stretching with some of your arguments. Mocking a person for using a text emoji in their bio? Asking users to not use their full name? Noting a person's likes and dislikes? So what? They do what they want. These 'issues' don't hurt anybody." The brawler pulled her sleeve down.

"Mocking grammar is low-hanging fruit. Yeah, there're tons of free software that can clean up all of these pesky grammar problems. People who still don't correct their grammar despite that do deserve criticism. But remember: roasts are supposed to be funny, and there's not a lot you can do with grammar while making it funny. And YGS? They already took most of the easy stuff. Plus, Shakey repeats the 'new paragraph for each speaker' gag over and over again. Yeah, we get it. People can't write for shit. What else is new after your tenure under the fanfiction rock?"

Yang let out a sigh. "Now the story segment is arguably the best part of the roast, and even then it's not funny. Oh, you hate crossovers? You hate bad OCs as well? And SIs? And stupid reaction fics? And crack ships? Look, if you're not cool with those, I'm totally fine with leaving you with those opinions. But why the fuck do you have to mention that over and over again as the punchline? It's not funny pointing at bad OC fics and going, 'bad OC amirite guys?' That gets tiring, especially since he repeats it throughout thirty-two chapters! You expect him to change up the formula, right?"

The blonde stuck out a finger. "There's just one problem. He's gotta pump out these chapters every other weekday for them views. As a result, he decides to scribble up roughly four hundred words or something and tosses it onto the CCT, thinking that his rush job's good enough to satisfy the masses. For comparison, a short chapter is two thousand words. Because of this, we get these uber-short chapters that are filled with quick, lazy jabs at the roastee. No person with even a shred of respect would consider this a good roast. They would probably be more insulted by the fact that Shakey gave so little of a shit that he threw out that drivel. The only interesting bits is when he goes ham on people that actually deserve it." The brawler glanced at the clock.

"An hour? Wow, I've been recording for a long time." She glanced back at the camera. "I would say his best chapters are the ones that mock the people who are legitimately terrible, such as Wolf Knight and Dragon Slayer. They give him so much more fuel to work with than anybody else who wanted to get roasted. Sooo, why doesn't he find more people like that? It's clearly his best works. Any writer would be happy realizing they struck creative gold. Why the fuck are you going back to panning for your creativity if you managed to hit a vein? Keep whacking at people who deserve it." Yang coughed into her hand to clear out her throat.

"Now, there's a big faux-pas that Shakey has committed in this fic: posting a PM for everyone to see. In Chapter Thirty-One, Shakey posted a transcript of his PM with Dragon Slayer which depicts the user in a bad light. For one thing, Shakey could easily be lying about this. Why would you trust the transcript of the person roasting the dude? Pics or it didn't happen. The second thing is that it's illegal!

"Here's the golden rule of PMs: 'You would have to get the other party's consent to post content that was transmitted privately. That goes for any social media site. If you post the content without consent then that violates the other party's right to privacy.' Guess what Shakey just did? I don't care if Dragon Slayer's a bad person. They have a right to privacy as well."

Yang let out a long breath. "But because you decided to post the PM to the CCT with your consent, I have the right to dig into it. Lies or not, I'll take this at face value. And all I have to say is what the fuck?! Yeah, this might just be a small snippet of the conversation, but let's look at it from Dragon Slayer's side, just to play devil's advocate."

"From their perspective, Shakey is pushing stories that they don't want to read down their throats, a big no-no anywhere. Don't you guys hate it when somebody goes up to you and say, 'buy my shit?' That's what Shakey's doing right now. He then states that Dragon Slayer's standards are low due to their preference to Naruto, covering his ass with the 'no offense' excuse."

Another sigh escaped her mouth. "Really, dude? Yeah, Dragon Slayer overreacted, but Shakey kept pushing when he didn't need to. 'Why not?' is a valid question to ask. Commenting on their likes isn't good reasoning for that question. It's like saying to a customer that your likes are fucking trash, so you should like this trash as well. Dick move all around."

With that statement out, Yang threw herself into the chair. "Whew. Geez, that took a long, long time. Alright, one more." She glanced at the still recording camera. "Now that all of his fics have been taken care of, let's get to one more thing…"

"The Miscellaneous Stuff! Aka the 'give me money and views!'" Her face fell into a droop. "Kill me," she muttered under her breath. "Now after one hell of a train-wreck, you would expect Shakey to just stay down, is that right? Wrong. He has a Pay-tree-on!" Yang slapped her cheeks. "Now he wants money for his bad excuses for writing. I wonder what kind of stuff he's making that's worth even a dollar. Let's look at that, shall we?"

Yang pulled out her scroll, opening the Pay-tree-on website. "Now Shakey here is making such things such as photo collages and fanfiction for the masses. We've already touched upon the fanfiction aspect, so let's look at the pictures he's posted and— Oh my gods! Holy— Is that Team RWBY with Zwei photoshopped into our faces?! What the fuck?! Geez, kill it!" She threw the device onto the floor and started stomping on it. "Kill it with fire!"

"Huh?" Ruby and Blake peeked up from their places to see the blonde smashing her scroll into bits. Both of their eyes widened. Ruby let her jaw drop at the sight. "Holy— Yang what are you doing?"

"Doing what I should've done a long time ago! I'm purging the sin!" Her breaths became more ragged as her pace slowed down to a halt. The room was silent as the blonde stood there, all eyes focused on the smoldering mess that was Yang's scroll. "... In my defense, the motherfucker photoshopped Zwei onto all of our faces. Fuck that shit." Still, nobody spoke. Yang let out a nervous chuckle. "Whelp, I'm going to need a new scroll. Ruby, you don't mind if I borrow yours to finish the video?"

The girl with the silver eyes squinted. "Are you going to break it?"

"Ruby, I promise you that I won't destroy your scroll." Yang pressed her hands together. "Can I have it please?"

"Finnneee. Please don't break it." Ruby pulled the electronic device out from her pocket and placed it into Yang's hand.

"Thanks, Ruby. Don't worry, I'll take care of it. Sorry about that, everybody. Like I said, Shakey here has a Pay-tree-on, and he has photoshopped abominations such as RWBY with Zwei faces. There's also a… what the fuck?" She glanced up at the camera. "No seriously, what the fuck? Why is there Jesus photoshopped on the meme of a baby girl running away from rabbis in poses? And in front of the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem? And there's a Filthy Frank rip-off going like, 'this boi dissed us!'" Yang placed the scroll onto the desk and rubbed her eyelids.

"Dude, what are you trying to convey? That Jesus is bad? Was it supposed to be funny? Because using an outdated meme and combining them with a bunch of religious icons isn't working. Whatever the punchline is, it's not clicking immediately. All I can see is some rabbis jumping Jesus in Jerusalem. Is the joke 'lol, the Jews went all Jutsu against Jesus 'cause he speak heresy?' That's barely a joke if I've ever seen one." She sighed.

"But enough about that. Let's talk about the actual quality since it's not an abomination like RWBY with Zwei faces. On one hand, good job for at least using a stock photo and paying for it. Wait, I forgot: Shakey probably just stole this one as well. On the other hand, this photoshopping is so bad. Why did you use .jpg for your background? It has a ton of artifacting, which is the fuzzy blurring you get when you scale a small image up for viewers at home. Shakey didn't even completely separate Jesus from the gold background in his original photo, so that's just him being lazy as usual. There's an MS word bubble that shouldn't belong there. There's a rabbi flying in the air, and where the fuck are his legs?!"

Yang stared at the photo. "What. The. Fuck. I thought the guy was doing some kind of karate kick or something like that, but the terrible photoshop made it look like he doesn't have any legs! Shakey, dude, there's something in Photoshop called the eraser tool. Use it after quick selecting. It makes the images really clean. You'll thank me later. But you also need to get a sense of humor. Having things look good on the CCT means shit if you keep making jokes like these. I don't care if you made it for a seminary for priests who get the references. Most of the CCT doesn't get it. Make better jokes."

The brawler cracked her knuckles again. "With that out of the way, how about we get into the summary and rewards? I mean, he has two bad things on there, but maybe he has reasons that make sense. Let's see here… 'I watch RWBY, and I enjoy writing fanfiction about it.'" She blinked before slamming the windows shut.

"Yang!" Ruby cried. "What's going on?"

"It's not safe here. This guy's watching our every move. He's a straight up stalker! I gotta make sure he's still not watching before I continue on. Blake!" Yang pointed at the girl. "You're on guard-duty! Tell me if you see any suspicious men on the premises! Ruby! Call Weiss and warn her. He might be watching her as well. Oh gods, I didn't expect to get killed before I even post this roast." She ended by slamming and locking the dorm door.

"Alright, back to the recording. Continuing on, 'Specifically, an OC featuring my original characters, plus some others that I am given permission by the creator to use.' The terrible crap one that doesn't go anywhere for a long, long time, you mean. 'I have already written most of the chapters in my main story, "Team MEDR." I will try to make some edits to earlier ones that aren't anywhere near as good as more current ones and put them up on here, potentially.' Are you saying 'potentially' to putting the old chapters up or fixing them up? Either option doesn't sound good. Plus until you get your formatting under control, I wouldn't touch a single new chapter he has."

Yang shifted her weight. "'I will also post little collages that I make!' Which are crap, as everyone can see. 'I hope to be able to make a nice amount of money, as I am trying to save up for things like a car and college.'" She looked up from Ruby's scroll. "Ooh, you want money for a car and college? How about you actually work for it? It's a scummy practice asking people to pay for fanfiction. It's because money can't make your writing better, but gives you the ability to not have to focus on life as you work on your writing. That's not happening if you're spending it on a car and college. But I digress. Maybe the rewards might be enough of an incentive."

Her thumb flicked the screen. "Okay. One lien for a thank you and exclusive Pay-tree-on content. What exclusive content? What could you make that is worth a lien? The dumb posters? More shitty fanfiction? Your work has no value. Three lien for a follow on social media. I always wanted to friend someone for three lien on a social media site that allows you to do it for free. Ten lien for a signed digital poster. Because I always wanted rabbi Jutsu-jumping Jesus as my wallpaper with your name. Twenty lien for my name in the credits of an upcoming project. Yeah, I wouldn't want my name to be associated with him. One hundred lien for a collab with him."

She pressed her hand against her mouth. "Oh my gods. I can pay one hundred lien to work with him?! And I get all of the previous rewards, which he doesn't have as an offer to the rest of the tiers? Why didn't I learn about this sooner? Take my money, fuck my ass, and we'll come up with some bullshit that will surely bring with all of the moneys!" Yang dropped the scroll back on the table. "Fuck you, Shakey. That's exploitive. People usually get paid when they work on a collab, or at the very least exposure when the work comes out. They don't have to drop one-hundred lien just to work with an artist. Nobody's dropping one-hundred for you."

Yang held the scroll out to her sister. "Thanks, Ruby. Well, in conclusion, Shakey is a terrible person. He's lazy, both his writing and photoshop skills are shit, he has an ego the size of a broken chunk of the moon, he's exploitive towards his fans, he steals images off of the internet, he pushes his terrible fanfictions way too much, he thinks he can call the shots in an amateur medium filled with passion. Yes, there's terrible people on the CCT, and he does get them at times. But mocking the average user who writes just for fun is just as bad as the terrible characters he's roasted."

The brawler leaned towards the camera one last time. "Look at yourself. Get some help. Stop this shit. And stop updating the view counter if you're not posting anything. You don't deserve to update it if you don't give enough of a fuck to even write a new chapter." She sighed. "This is Yang, and this is Beacon Content Patrol, signing off." With those final words, Yang stopped the recording and leaned back in her chair. "Holy shit, I did it. I'm done. Fuck. I feel like shit."

At this, the rest of her teammates looked at her. "So what are you going to do now?" Ruby asked.

"I'm going to take this footage, edit it, post it on RemTube, take the shower I desperately need, and then go to bed." Yang rubbed her eyes. "And hope that this doesn't bite us in the ass."

* * *

The rest of the events flew by Yang with a blur. She could hazily remember herself cutting at the hour-long footage in the editing software. The actual submission had little fanfare, with Yang just clicking the button and leaving for a nice, hot shower. She could barely remember herself walking over and jumping into the bed.

Which was a surprise when somebody shook her awake. "Yang! Wake up! Wake up!" Lilac eyes shot open bloodshot. All of Team RWBY stood around her with worrying looks on their faces. Silver eyes met Yang's as Ruby waved the scroll in her hands. "You have to see this!"

"Wait, what happened?" Yang snatched the device from her hands and looked at what was on the screen. Her eyes widened as she placed her hand on her mouth.

"What did I just do?"

* * *

 **End. Thanks for reading everybody, and again, April Fools!**


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